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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Here fishy fishy fishy...

My hero!

I'm lucky I met my husband, not only is he a great man, husband and father, he is also an excellent fisherman! His weapon of choice is a spear (for those not familiar with spear fishing, the spear is not like one you hold and just throw down at fish in a stream - this is more like a gun with a spear instead of bullets!). It's very impressive the way he sinks to the bottom of the reef (sometimes over 10m!), waits and shoots! He can hold his breathe long enough to scare me!! He catches medium size fish this way (trevally, snapper, and others I don't know the translated name of) and occasionally a big one! Often the big ones are the ones that (literally) get away - twisting out of his hands before he can finish them off.

He can also line fish outside the reef. This is where he catches the massive impressive fish, like spanish mackeral, tuna, snapper...

Looky here! It's dinner!

Lying in wait on the sandy bottomof the reef floor

This means that when money is tight, we can still eat! I was never a huge fish eater - unless Friday night Fish and Chips counts!! I used to like a piece of salmon fillet, or maybe some blue grenadier my mum would buy from the supermarket, or a tin of tuna...but thanks to my husband I have been introduced to a whole world of fish!

One good haul (lying in the back of the ute!)

Now it's just a matter of finding new ways to cook them!

Most locals here either fry their fish, or boil it in coconut milk (homemade of course, Ill tell you how they make that another time!), or just boiled in water. Or eat them raw (certain species only!) in a fish salad. They also fight over who gets to eat the head...eurgh!

None of those options are really that appealing to me (although I have developed a taste for the raw fish). I can appreciate that this was the way they have been bought up, but for me I think I can do something a bit tastier!!

Here is what I have done so far...

Filleting the fish

My husband is great at filleting me a piece of fish, which I coat in a bit of flour and pan fry with some lemon. Simple and tasty!

In a baking dish, I place some onion, tomatoes, white wine, garlic and a whole fish. Cover in foil and bake in the oven until the fish is cooked. The bigger the piece of fish, the better the vegetables taste (as they have been cooked longer!). It is pretty much just steamed fish, but the flavours are pretty great!

Sashimi! Yum - I love it when we have tuna or Spanish mackerel - we don't have the seaweed wrappers to make sushi here (although I did bring some from Australia and made sushi, but thats all gone now...)

??? I need some new recipes...any suggestions??

Homemade sushi - tuna and avocado...I wish we could but the seaweed stuff here!

Mmmm...Sashimi!

Another good thing about Wallis is there is other seafood around, with the right pair of gloves and the right moon in the sky, my husband can go and find us some lobsters! Yum. I prefer these boiled and served with a bit of mayo, or BBQed...delicious! We can also get coconut crabs, mud crabs...

BBQ'd goodness!

Mmm...all this talk is making me hungry - and we have fish for lunch today!